GAME – Page 134 – The department of Game Design at Uppsala University, campus Gotland

2013/11/04 - Mon2016/12/12 - Mon - Comments Off
Blog
gamex, outreach

Gamex 2013

We have never done a better show than this! I designed a booth similar to this, but 6×10 meter. Håkan managed the booth’s internal layout and the student teams, while I focused on print materials, travel- & living arrangements, truck rental and planning our message. Felicia, Jerry, Adam, Marcus, Håkan and I came with from the staff. For the first time ever, we had a proper reception desk and constant staff representatives in the booth, which helped a lot!

4 of the 7 projects were first year groups. 2 of those are commercial projects (CoBots being released on Desura the day before Gamex opened). The interest from schools have never been lower. It was us, Skövde, BTH and one course presentation from KTH.

A genius move of ours was to bring our Oculus Rift.

Many, many people came to Gamex just to get a chance and try that. The “official” Oculus Rift booth (I believe it was actually PC Gamer) had *hours* of que. Since we never advertised ours, we only had 30 minutes or so at most. But it was enough to ensure our booth was constantly filled, and gave us a great, approachable audience. 🙂

King of The Thrill, one of the first year projects, is a clever browser based concept. You snap a photo of a QR code next to the monitor, and your phones browser instantly turns into a controller and connects you to the game. This team had so much fun with the people in line – often having 15-20 people simultaneously battling it out while waiting for their turn with the Oculus.

And on that note, our teams were SO. FUCKING. GOOD. this year. Super professional. Helpful. No complainypants or slacking off at all. I was so proud of them that we arranged a spontaneous cake-party on the ferry, celebrating the good work on the way back to the island.

Coverage:
P4 Morgon
Svensk Indie på Gamex 2013: CoBots
Svensk Indie på Gamex 2013, King of Thrill
PowerGamer.se: Cobots & Tribal Marathon
GamingGrannar: King of the Thrill, Secrets of Grindia, Fly or Die
Sätrapôjk: CoBots, Secrets of Grindia
Linnéa Söderlund: Secrets of Grindia
Nördigt.nu podcast: GAME och King of the Thrill (0:39:20), CoBots (1:19:20)
Capishe.se: King of the Thrill
Capishe.se: Secrets of Grindea
Bossdungeon.com: CoBots
Bossdungeon.com: Fly or Die
Varvat.se: Little Warlock

2013/10/27 - Sun2019/01/20 - Sun - Comments Off
Blog
outreach

Game On 2.0

There were a ton of people at the premiere evening of Game On 2.0 in Sweden. Our booth was jam-packed with people the entire evening – great fun!

The exhibition has an entire room dedicated to the pre-console era. Hand helds and toys with LCD displays, crude (CRUDE) animations and ingeniously fake 3D-effects. These were amazing to get to try. They also let you play the Virtual Boy – a decently rare beast of the relatively modern games industry.

In the arcade section you could play Star Wars from 1983 (video). As a designer it’s humbling to see how they managed to distill the essence of Star Wars into something so technologically limited! And how efficient the experience is constructed! A full play through is less than 3 minutes, and sees you through a large scale space battle, intense X-Wing racing and finally the terrifying approach of the ventilation duct on the Death Star.

Saving the galaxy in less than 3 minutes!

If you ever need a definition of “aged well” – nothing will serve you better. And what a perfect argument for opening our archives and museums for games! An emulator would never convey the experience of the real deal; the fully articulated flight yoke is such a sense pleasure!

If you’re in Stockholm, set a few hours aside and go see this exhibition!

2013/10/21 - Mon2013/10/21 - Mon - Comments Off
Marketing

GAME Recruitment Flyer 2013

We’ve just created a new recruitment brochure for the department. We’ll bring these with us to Tekniska Museet at the end of this week, and Gamex next week. But you can have a web-friendly PDF too, of course. 🙂

This years version skips the bit on entrepreneurship, incubators and startups. These are still very much a part of what we do, of course, but we feel it’s more important to talk about our expectations on incoming students, and give concrete tips on how to prepare for our educations.

And we’re of course very happy to put Genusföretagarna (“the Gender Businesses”) front-and-center. We know that our gaming communities are filled with diverse participants and as a mature education we are committed to the presence and contributions of all people. By proudly displaying we’re an ally and actively engage with the issues of inclusion, we can improve the experiences of all community members, and thereby improve the culture.

In short; the 2013 version is more serious, and more responsible. We hope it carries our message clearly, leaves a good impression and attracts the right kind of students. 🙂

2013/10/16 - Wed2013/10/16 - Wed - Comments Off
Blog
outreach

Game Night at Tekniska Museet

Tekniska Museet – The National Museum of Science and Technology – is tasked with saving, making visible and promoting access to our technological and industrial cultural expressions – a mission which reverberates strongly with us! And even more so now that they’ve just aquired the worlds largest computer games exhibition; Game ON 2.0.

The exhibition open on the 25th, and they’re going to kickstart it with a big event in Stockholm; 2 000 people in attendance, with stage entertainment, bar, game related live music etc. They call the party Game Night and sent out a call for a few companies to participate as representatives of the Swedish game development scene. As the oldest specialized game design education in Scandinavia, we were chosen to be among them.

So join us at the party on the 25th, meet our students, try their games and find out why game development is destined to become Swedens primary cultural industry!

At the party you’ll be able to test these games and talk to their creators:
Fly or Die

3… 2… 1… BOOOOOM!!!
Fly or Die is back in Stockholm! After being awarded with the Gamer’s Choice at this years Swedish Game Awards, Fly or Die went half around the globe to Tokyo Game Show, and back again. It’s time once more for you to put on the jetpack and challenge your friends in the most quirky version of “Hot Potato” you have ever played… or heard.

Fly or Die was awarded Gamer’s Choice at the Swedish Game Awards, and developed by students in their first year.

Lunar Love

Lunar Love is a puzzle game based on the timeless love between a moon and her planet. The moon is lost in space – and it’s up to the player to help her get back home. She does this by activating gravity fields around the planet’s hearts in order to guide the moon to her goal. However, there are one or two obstacles in her way that needs to be dodged gracefully.

Lunar Love was awarded the Almedalen Award at the Gotland Game Conference 2013, and developed by students in their third year.

CoBots

CoBots is a game about two robots linked together by a forcefield aboard a huge spaceship, tasked with restoring power to inactive sections. Played collaboratively, you advance through the game by solving puzzles with your partner,, all while avoiding “accidentally” hurting each other.

CoBots was awarded the Best First Year Project and Pwnage Award at Gotland Game Conference 2013, and developed by students in their first year.

Tribal Marathon

Tribal Marathon is a 2-4 player racing game in the vein of Temple Run. Gather valuable artifacts while trying to push the other players into obstacles or out of the track. All’s fair in love and temple raiding.
Compete in unique levels generated by our dynamic environment system and see who manages amass the most points and making it out alive!

Tribal Marathon was awarded Student’s Choice at the Gotland Game Conference 2013, and developed by students in their first year.